The deadly crash of an air ambulance in a residential area outside New Delhi late Wednesday has revived a debate over air safety in India and raised troubling questions about whether the country’s regulator is keeping a close enough watch on the skies.

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An air ambulance crashed in the middle of a residential area near New Delhi, killing 10 people.

India’s aviation regulator DGCA has been trying to improve the country’s air safety.

More than two months after an Air India jetliner crash killed 158 passengers in the southern city of Mangalore, India’s aviation regulator has new operational guidelines. The new procedures, which were issued Tuesday, emphasize the importance of co-pilots during emergencies.

Under the new procedures from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or DCGA, the co-pilot needs to shout two warnings to the commander if aircraft is in danger during its approach to the runway. If the commander doesn’t listen, then the co - pilot has to take charge of all operational functions. Read More »

We all love those smooth plane landings. You know, when the aircraft glides onto the tarmac, with no jarring thud as the wheels touch ground, and then comes to a gradual and comfortable stop. Sometimes, we even applaud the captain. Well, it turns out that type of landing may actually be a dangerous stunt in some cases.

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A Jet Airways plane lands at the Mumbai airport.

In its first concrete step since the May 22 crash of an Air India Express jet in Mangalore, India’s aviation regulator has issued a directive telling pilots not to aim for such “soft” landings because their aircraft might run out of room on a short runway.

Pilots have been concerned about this issue, having felt pressure from their bosses at airlines to do fewer “hard” landings so as to please finicky passengers. In India’s crowded and competitive commercial aviation market, it doesn’t help to be known as the airline known that thrashes people onto the runway and leaves them with whiplash while bumping-and-grinding to a halt. Read More »

India Real Time presents a round-up of commentary and analysis of one of the key news events this week – trouble for the distraught national carrier Air India, which is trying to resurrect its image and brand after last week’s crash in Mangalore that killed 158 people and also had to deal with a strike by workers.

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Never-ending woes! A file photo of Air India aircraft at London Heathrow Airport

A report published in the Hindustan Times said the strike called by a section of Air India employees’ unions may have ended Wednesday evening but the plight of passengers did not. “The operational backlog meant large numbers of flights were cancelled and many were delayed even on Thursday and Friday,” the report said.

The Daily News and Analysis reported “the Air Corporation Employees Union, which spearheaded the two-day strike in Air India has threatened another strike from June 12 charging the management with conspiring to instigate trouble and later declare a lockout in the national carrier.” On Thursday, Air India sacked 58 employees and de-recognized two unions which led the walkout. Read More »

India’s pilots are raising concerns about the nation’s air safety guidelines in the wake of the Air India Express crash last weekend, saying the government needs to address issues like scheduling, airport modernization and what they consider ill-advised incentives to carry out “soft” landings on short airstrips.

In a March interview with the WSJ, Arvind Jadhav, chairman and managing director of Air India’s parent company, said that the single most crucial factor in turning around the ailing carrier was whether or not its employees signed on for the restructuring that he and his team are pursuing.

EPA

An Air India ground employee lies down during a strike at the domestic airport in New Delhi, India.

“The biggest risk is that at the end of the day employees don’t agree,” said Mr. Jadhav. “If employees agree, then most of the risks are removed; all others we can handle.”

The strike by maintenance and engineering workers that began Tuesday and by Wednesday had caused the cancellation of dozens of Air India flights, does not bode well at all. Read More »

After Saturday’s Air India crash some of the spotlight has been on foreign pilots.

The crash of an Air India Express jet in Mangalore has turned a spotlight on the use of foreign pilots in India, with some aviation consultants and media talking heads pointing the finger at expats for accidents and close-shaves in recent years.

Aviation and Air India officials have been quick to point out, however, that the pilot of the Boeing 737-800 in Saturday’s accident, a British national of Serbian heritage, was quite experienced. He had 9,000 hours of flying experience and had landed 19 times at Mangalore’s Bajpe airport, the company’s chairman told reporters Sunday. So it would seem a stretch to suggest that he was somehow unprepared to pull off the hilltop landing.

Nevertheless, the crash of flight IX 812 has provoked debate again on whether India needs foreign pilots in the first place. Read More »

Relatives of victims of the Air India Express crash during a funeral service at the St. Alphonsa Catholic Church in Mangalore on Sunday.

Preceding the crash of the Air India Express flight at Mangalore airport Saturday was a struggle of more than a decade by local residents and activists against the construction of the second airstrip at the airport, which the Boeing 737-800 landed on, then veered off, killing 158 of the 166 people aboard.

Arthur Pereira, a resident of Bajpe, a Mangalore suburb where the aerodrome has been in operation since 1951, says he started studying the implications of the new airstrip in 1987, when it was first proposed to the national government by the Karnataka state government.

The state government wanted to expand the old airport because of the potential growth in air traffic at the airport and in the face of pressure from the local business community, which wanted a larger airstrip for bigger international carriers to use, says Leo F. Saldanha, coordinator of the Bangalore-based Environment Support Group, an NGO that Mr. Pereira worked with. The economy of the southern coastal city of Mangalore is intricately linked with the Gulf and Middle East countries, where locals go for work.

“From a retired airport officer, I came to know of the different international and national standards that needed to be followed for airport construction,” Mr. Pereira, a 52-year-old farmer, said in an interview. Read More »

Of all the things that have publically plagued Air India, safety issues haven’t been prominent.

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Firefighters and rescue personnel try to extinguish the flames around the wreckage.

A March report by the parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings (Air India’s parent, National Aviation Co. of India Ltd., is state-run, so subject to governmental oversight) succinctly summed up the carrier’s litany of woes as it seeks to emerge from a botched merger between Air India and Indian Airlines, a brutally competitive environment and overstaffing.

It read: “Almost two years after the merger, the company is plagued by serious survival issues including a huge financial loss, no real integration taking place, a disenchanted workforce, gross mismanagement regarding operations under different codes and a massive debt following an ambitious fleet acquisition plan.” Read More »

About India Real Time

India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.